First, parking structures need to be used for longer periods of the day and for different purposes, both public and private. [...]

Second, parking structures need to be designed as flexible structures that can accommodate transitions from parking alone to a variety of other uses as parking ratios decline with further mixed-use development and increased use of shared parking facilities and transit.
— urbanland.uli.org

Related on Archinect: The Life of a New Architect: Elizabeth Christoforetti View full entry »

Are you in a hurry to catch your flight and still need to find a parking place? Meet Ray, a shiny robot that parks your car at Düsseldorf Airport in Germany.

Ray makes sure you don’t have to park miles away from the terminal, eliminating the hassle of finding a parking place. Just drop off your car within a few meters from the check-in area [...]. When you come back from a holiday or business trip, the robot will make sure your car is ready to go when you walk out of the airport.
— popupcity.net

A new parking garage in Nordhavn, Denmark by JAJA Architects will combine form, functionality, and fun. Draped in greenery and topped with a public playground, the aptly named Park and Play reimagines a garage as an active social space rather than simply a storage place for cars. [...]

The garage is being built as part of the first phase of Nordhavn’s almost 500-acre master plan to be developed over the next 40 to 50 years.
— buildabetterburb.org

This automated garage is ideal for dense urban areas, says Yoka, vice president of program development at the International Parking Institute, based in Alexandria, Virginia. A Philadelphia-area native and self-described "super parking nerd," her niche is sustainable parking, something that many people, upon first hearing the phrase, assume is a contradiction. But for a building designed to house cars, says Yoka, The Lift at Juniper Street is surprisingly green.
— citylab.com

We might ask ourselves the question, why is it that so many communities want to disguise the utilitarian cell phone tower as a fake tree? They fool no one and actually call more attention to them. Or why are there hundreds of parking structures that have false façades that make people initially think they are foreclosed buildings with all the windows broken? There seems to be much cultural confusion about the beauty of the utilitarian.
— buildabetterburb.org

Willoughby Square, in Brooklyn, NY, however, will bring together both beauty and utility by topping an automated underground parking garage with street-level greenery in a smart new project targeted for completion in 2016.

Over a decade in the making, Willoughby Park is being called the “crown jewel” of the 2004 Downtown Brooklyn Redevelopment Plan, a scheme to help improve Brooklyn’s public spaces and foster neighborhood community and culture.
— buildabetterburb.org

It's known as Eleven Eleven, and it has changed people’s perception about what a utilitarian structure can be; and has ignited conversations worldwide about its design and use. This garage has reshaped the urban fabric of the city and people are going there to get married, relax, and enjoy a cocktail.
— vimeo.com

Earlier this week, we featured the urban square design GENK C-m!ne by Dutch landscape and urban design firm HOSPER. Here's another project by them we really enjoyed: an almost 8,000 square foot ornamental pond on top of an underground parking garage which rivals any James Bond supervillan lair. The fascinating garage entrance, which has won multiple design awards, is part of the larger urban and landscape master plan HOSPER drew up for the land of the historic Hageveld Estate, near Amsterdam.
— bustler.net

Architect Zaha Hadid has been chosen by the City of Miami Beach to design its newest parking garage at Collins Park, a neighborhood that’s home to the Miami City Ballet, the Bass Museum, the City Library as well as the Gansevoort, W and Setai luxury hotels. Collins Park is also just blocks... View full entry »

Simon Henley's new book, The Architecture of Parking (Thames & Hudson), casts an objective eye over car parks, one of the most important but most neglected building types of the modern era, and finds a strange and haunting beauty.
— guardian

'Using formal expression to overcome any shortfall in the quality of construction' ... The Tricorn Centre, Portsmouth, (above) designed by The Owen Luder Partnership. View full entry »

But the real show is outside, where the garage includes a number of large-scale public-art installations, including pieces by Anne Marie Karlsen (along 2nd Street) and L.A. firm Ball-Nogues Studio (along 4th Street). The Ball-Nogues piece, called “Cradle,” features hundreds of stainless-steel spheres suspended from one of the garage’s exterior walls. The design is open-ended enough to suggest both sea foam and a Newton’s Cradle...
— latimesblogs.latimes.com